My Journey to Lose 200 Pounds

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TBL and My Habits

As I was watching The Biggest Loser, I started thinking about how far they’ve come on the show and how far I’ve come in MY weight loss journey. At this point, after exactly 2 months, eating healthy has become a habit. It’s so much easier than it was when I first started. It’s like second nature to me. It’s routine.

I’ve always heard it takes 21 days to make a habit. So for example, if you tell yourself you’re going to wash your hands everyday at 8pm then it takes 21 days of washing your hands at that time to form a habit that will stick. Being two months into this, I’ve realized how many new great habits I’ve started.

I eat cereal every morning for breakfast. Sometimes in the past I’d be too busy to eat breakfast some mornings. So now I’m not only making a habit to eat breakfast, but I’m also eating a healthy breakfast.

Another habit is that I don’t drink any pop that’s not diet. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to quit pop for many years. I couldn’t get past 2 days without it because I would get horrible headaches. Now, I don’t even miss “real pop” as I call it. I’ve replaced the pop drinking with either diet pop or water. That’s pretty much all I drink now at home.

The habit I’m most proud of is cooking dinner at home almost every night. I’ve actually started to enjoy cooking again. If you recall from earlier posts, I hardly ever cooked because I was eating fast food or take out pretty much every meal. Now I look forward to meal planning for the week and deciding what I’ll have for dinners this week, which leads me to my next habit.

I am in the habit of planning now. I plan out my meals, my snacks, my time, my exercise, etc. I like knowing what I’m going to eat for dinner before it’s even dinner time so that I don’t get lazy and stop to get something unhealthy on the way home. I like planning out when I’ll exercise so that I’ll actually do it. I like planning out my time and what I’ll be doing so that I can therefore plan my meals or snacks around that too.

For example, Sunday night was Church at 6pm. After that was Bible study. Eating at 5:30 was too early, but waiting until after Bible study at 11:00 was too late too. So I planned it out and brought my dinner with me. After Church, one person usually goes and grabs some Arby’s or something close by for everyone. I wasn’t even tempted to eat with them because I had my delicious dinner packed with me ready to eat. 🙂

These habits that I’ve created are really important to me and I don’t want to break them. I want to continue to create better habits for myself. I want to continue to move forward, to be better. And just like they try to teach the contestants on TBL, I’m worth it. I want to live. There’s an alive person under all this weight just trying to get out. 🙂

I LOVE this post!!! This is the best news I have heard all day!! You are worth it, and you have crossed over into the light!! These habits are so fantastic, and I bet you love life a whole lot more now that YOU know you are in control of your destiny, starting with the details of everyday living!